Why I Built Helipod
Every time I wanted to deploy an app, I hit the same wall.
Railway → international credit card required.
Heroku → free tier deleted since 2022.
Render → credit card for anything beyond free tier.
Fly.io → credit card after 7 days.
Most developers in Southeast Asia don't have
international credit cards. The penetration rate
in Indonesia is around 7%. That means millions of
talented developers are blocked from the best
deployment platforms — not because of skill, but
because of payment infrastructure.
So I built Helipod.
What is Helipod?
Helipod is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) built
specifically for Indonesian and Southeast Asian developers.
The core difference:
- Pay with QRIS, GoPay, OVO, or bank transfer
- Server located in Jakarta (low latency for SEA)
- Pricing transparent in Indonesian Rupiah (IDR)
- No international credit card required
Features:
- Deploy from GitHub/GitLab with auto-build
- 40+ one-click templates (PostgreSQL, Redis, n8n, WordPress, Open WebUI, and more)
- Real-time logs and live terminal access
- Custom domains with free SSL
- Internal VPC networking between services
- Auto-scaling CPU and RAM
- Persistent volumes
The Stack
I built everything with:
- Bun + ElysiaJS — backend API (incredibly fast)
- Next.js — landing page and dashboard
- Docker — container orchestration
- Cloudflare — DNS, tunnels, CDN
The entire infrastructure runs on Helipod itself.
Dogfooding from day one.
6 Months of Solo Development
Building a PaaS alone is... a lot.
Not just technically — deployment pipelines, VPC
networking, real-time logs, metrics, managed databases,
billing systems, auto-scaling.
But also mentally. No co-founder to share the weight.
No team to bounce ideas with. No safety net.
There were nights when I questioned everything.
But then last week, a university student DM'd me on
Instagram. He wanted to deploy his Laravel school
project. No credit card. Frustrated after trying
Railway.
We spent 2 hours together. He deployed successfully.
That moment made everything worth it.
What I Learned
1. Build for your own frustration
The clearest product ideas come from problems you
personally experienced. I was the target user.
2. Solo doesn't mean slow
With the right stack (Bun is insanely fast), one
person can build production infrastructure.
3. Talk to users early
Every confused user is free product research.
That student taught me more in 2 hours than
weeks of analytics.
4. Distribution is harder than building
The product took 6 months. Getting people to
know it exists is an ongoing challenge.
Current Status
- 1.3k+ registered users
- Growing 10-15 new signups per day
- Zero paid marketing
- Launching today on Product Hunt 🚀
Try Helipod
If you're a developer in Indonesia or Southeast Asia
who's been frustrated by the credit card wall —
Helipod is built for you.
helipod.io — free tier available, no credit card needed.
And if you're feeling generous, we'd love your support
on Product Hunt today 🙏
Support Helipod on Product Hunt →
Built by a solo developer from Indonesia, for
developers like him.
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